Doubling wages during the Spring Festival
春節上班 薪資加倍

Mon, Jan 28, 2013 - Page 11

The minimum hourly wage rate for hourly wage earners was raised to NT$109 on Jan. 1. The Taipei Department of Labor is calling on employers to double wages in compliance with the law for hourly wage earners who work during the Lunar New Year (Lunar New Year’s Eve until the third day of the first month on the lunar calendar), which means they must be paid at least NT$218 per hour.

Employers must also double wages for employees earning monthly salaries, but if you accept the increased wages you will not be eligible for compensatory leave.

The department would like to remind people that starting on Jan. 1, the minimum hourly wage was raised from NT$103 to NT$109. However, since the new regulation has not been in effect very long, many employees and employers are still not in the know, so the department would like to have the public better understand the new rules. The minimum monthly salary is still NT$18,780.

The first item in Article 79 of the Labor Standards Act stipulates that if an employer does not provide employees with the minimum amount of wages, they can be punished by an administrative fine of no less than NT$20,000 but not exceeding NT$300,000.

Yeh Chien-neng, head of the department’s Labor Standards Division, says that the department has yet to investigate the situation since minimum wages were adjusted and has also not received any complaints thus far, but the department is planning to begin an investigation after the Lunar New Year.

Yeh says that even if an employer or employee is not aware of the increased minimum wage requirement until after the employee has already left their post, the former employee can apply with the department to be compensated for the difference in pay.